Treasurer Joe Hockey could not allow “scurrilous and false allegations about corruption” reported by Fairfax Media to remain unchallenged, his lawyers have told the opening of a defamation trial.

Mr Hockey says Fairfax Media defamed him in a series of articles in The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Canberra Times about his relationship with a Liberal Party fundraising body the North Sydney Forum, published on May 5, 2014.

His barrister, Bruce McClintock, SC, told the Federal Court Mr Hockey’s case is that Fairfax Media editors were motivated to publish “extraordinarily serious allegations” that they “knew were false” because they had to publish a correction to an earlier article about Mr Hockey.

“It was an act of petty spite,” Mr McClintock said. In that article, published on March 21, 2014, the papers said Mr Hockey repaid money to Australian Water Holdings, a company that has been the subject of an investigation by the Independent Commission Against Corruption.

In fact it was the North Sydney Forum that repaid the money. The papers ran an apology the following day. Subsequent emails and text messages between Fairfax Media editors and political reporters show the decision to publish the “Treasurer for Sale” series of articles was a “calculated plan” written to “exact revenge”, Mr McClintock said.

In a series of text messages, Herald editor-in-chief Darren Goodsir told The Age editor-in-chief Andrew Holden that he was angry at being contacted at 2.15am by Mr Hockey’s staff.

“They have a f—ing hide,” he said. “I feel pissed off they called me so early.”

Holden replied: “The simplest approach is to dig into NSF… in that story you can run Hockey’s claim he knew nothing … beyond that, f— him.

“Amazing they freeze us out and then think they have the relationship that allows them to call in the middle of the night.”

Goodsir said: “Are we not better to have a red hot go at the issue next week, and really go for it … after the day we’ve had, I ain’t going to run this – but am more than keen to develop a North Sydney Forum plan for next week.”

He instructed Herald state political editor Sean Nicholls to dig into the North Sydney Forum.

On March 27, Goodsir wrote: “F—ing Brilliant … given what Andrew and I endured last week with Hockey, I want to have this nailed to the cross in more ways than one … keep digging Sean… I have long dreamed (well, only since last Friday), of a headline that screams: Sloppy Joe! I think we are not far off, but perhaps even more serious than that.”

Anyone who thinks that the conviction of Craig Thomson for fraud brings this scandal to a conclusion, pending sentencing, does not appreciate the magnitude of the deception involved. The five years of silence, suppression and delay around this scandal embroiled former prime minister Julia Gillard, the leader of the Greens, Christine Milne, the Fair Work Australia agency and numerous present or former federal Labor MPs.

Long after Thomson’s conduct was exposed by the Herald, the Labor Party began secretly paying his legal bills, helped fund his defamation action against the Herald, re-endorsed him for the seat of Dobell, deployed large resources to that campaign and suppressed revelations in the Senate. After his re-election in 2010 saved the Gillard government, the prime minister recorded her gratitude in Parliament on August 16, 2011: ”I have complete confidence in the member for Dobell. I look forward to him continuing to do that job for a very long, long, long time to come.”

The prime minister’s droll cynicism fed into a pattern of delay, dissembling, secrecy and suppression. Read more »

Craig Thomson’s union-issued credit card was used to pay for almost $6000 of sexual services, a court has heard, and some of that spending was later classified as meetings, entertainment and teleconferencing.

The former federal MP is on trial for fraud and theft in Melbourne Magistrates Court. On Wednesday, the court heard a police forensic accountant had examined the Health Services Union credit card statements and found that a Commonwealth Bank Mastercard issued to Mr Thomson when he was national secretary had paid for escort services totalling $5993.

According to a spreadsheet tendered to court, $2475 was paid to Keywed, the business name of Room Escort Services, in April 2005. Two months later, $418 was paid to Nolta, the business name for Tiffany’s Girls, the brothel that owns a ”red turbo spa room”. Then in August 2006, $660 was paid to Staff Call, the merchant name for Sydney brothel A Touch of Class.

The payment to Staff Call was later listed as a teleconferencing expense on the HSU’s book-keeping system, according to the spreadsheet.

When Joe Hockey was growing up and dreaming of becoming prime minister, he would not have imagined that his dream would lead him to joining a bomb disposal unit. Tomorrow, he will unveil the first bomb he must dismantle and it is almost nuclear in its capacity for destruction.

At 12.30 on Tuesday, Hockey, who has also been the stand-out thespian of the new federal parliament, will unveil the real horror, dysfunction and narcissism of Kevin Rudd’s contribution to Australian political history, disably assisted by Julia Gillard. Hockey will release the mid-year economic and fiscal outlook, known in the trade as MYEFO, which will show a budget deficit much worse than Labor led us to believe, probably close to $50 billion, debt obligations much higher than Labor led us to believe, and unfunded liabilities that are so irresponsibly crushing the government will have to walk away from many of them. The most monumental folly is the National Broadband Network, whose economic rationale was worked out on a piece of paper by Rudd. The scheme subsequently created by former communications minister Stephen Conroy would cost more than $70 billion and never recover its cost of capital. The Abbott government will have to start again. Read more »

It took 10 months for Craig Thomson’s alleged offending to be detailed in court, but it was racy when it arrived.

Turbocharged even.

n opening the case against the former federal MP in Melbourne Magistrates Court, prosecutor Lesley Taylor, SC, told magistrate Charlie Rozencwajg she would give him a ‘‘flavour’’ of what to expect in the summary trial.

That ‘‘flavour’’ came in the saucy details of the alleged misuse of Health Services Union credit cards on escort agencies, sex workers and pornographic movies in hotel rooms while on work trips.

Despite months and months of denials that charges on his union credit to a brothel were not his, Craig Thomson has finally decided to fess up and tell us what we already knew…that the charges were his.

CRAIG Thomson will avoid facing a jury on charges of misappropriating union funds, after his lawyer appeared to backtrack from the former Labor MP’s previous claim that he did not use union credit cards to pay for escorts.

Mr Thomson, who is running for reelection in his NSW seat of Dobell as an independent, today won his application to have the 173 charges heard by a magistrate instead of proceeding to a judge and jury.

Making the application, Mr Thomson’s barrister Greg James QC said it was “very likely” there would be no issues about the facts of the expenditure, and the case instead related to whether Mr Thomson had authority for the spending as national secretary.

“These are not complex charges,” he said.

Mr Thomson is accused of falsely representing that the HSU had authorised thousands of dollars of credit card spending, including payment for escorts and cash withdrawals from bank accounts, and using union credit cards to pay for pornographic movies at hotels. Read more »

Former Federal Labor MP Craig Thomson – accused of using a Health Services Union credit card to pay for prostitutes – has appeared in court today to face 19 fresh charges.

Mr Thomson, 48, who last week announced he would stand as an independent for his NSW seat of Dobell at the September federal election after being suspended by the Labor Party, appeared briefly in the Melbourne Magistrates Court charged with a total of 173 fraud and theft offences. Read more »